The Winter Soldier. It starts with an idea that Thomas Paine wrote about in 1776, during the revolution, about the men who fight when it’s easy, and the men who fight when it’s hard.

In his own words... “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Recent analyses and legal actions suggest that the Trump administration is engaged in various arrangements that challenge the U.S. Constitution and legal norms. Some say the summer soldiers sit back and let the changes happen. Things couldn’t get worse. An emerging number of winter soldiers are on the street — federal judges and ordinary citizens, speaking and writing in protest of tyranny and defense of constitutional democracy.

Critics have highlighted several areas of concern:

• Undermining independent agencies and the rule of law by firing independent watchdogs, executive orders targeting law firms, targeting critics of dissent,
• Executive Order attempting to end 14th Amendment birthright citizenship
• Executive overreach and challenges to separation of powers, such as dismantling USAID and other agencies, controlling independent regulatory agencies, ignoring legal limits on spending, challenges to Congressional subpoenas
• Immigration enforcement and civil rights, such as expanded use of immigration enforcement, suspending student visa records, policies restricting asylum and refugee resettlement, federal takeover of cities

Other constitutional challenges include deregulation based on Supreme Court rulings, threats to authorized schools’ funding over DEI, deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, violating the constitutional speech and debate Clause:

What are winter soldiers doing?

Don’t let Trump get away with his lies. Have a truth squad that responds immediately with the facts and cites sources

Work with legislators to plan and announce ways to catch up with what we’ve lost on the environment, human rights, voting rights, labor rights, and safety nets.

Lay out a vision for the future. In your family, church, civic group and business. Discuss Medicare for all. Affordable child care and elder care. Affordable homes. Fairness of incomes, clean energy, fair financial and investment regulation.

Discuss what you’d do to prevent this catastrophe from ever happening again. Work with legislators to publicly lay out the laws and amendments, the systems to tear down, the safeguards to enshrine,

Support independent investigations. Hold public hearings based on an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, illegal ICE raids, and executive abuse. Use experts, veterans, whistleblowers, journalists, watchdog organizations.

And above all, have hope. The damage Trump is doing can create a mental and emotional prison, if we allow it to. That prison can be suffocating, taking away the breath of hope and pushing us into despair. Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, wrote from jail, much like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Havel wrote: “The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” Winter soldiers have good work to do.